Divine intervention saved convent: Syria nun

AFP, Saidnaya, Syria

Sister Stefanie, the head of Sednaya Monastery, shows journalists damage caused to the convent during a recent shelling on Tuesday. Journalists were taken to the monastery northwest of the capital, Damascus, on a government-organized trip to view damage caused to the convent that came under artillery fire on Sunday.

Photo: AFP

Divine intervention prevented a shell that pierced the walls of a Syrian convent from detonating, swears the mother superior of Our Lady of Saidnaya, a spiritual retreat near Damascus.

“The Virgin Mary stopped the shell from exploding with her own hands,” said Mother Verone, who interpreted the close call as a divine message that “God is watching over sacred places” amid the unprecedented unrest rocking Syria.

The sound of explosions and gunfire from nearby towns echoes around the normally tranquil convent. The nuns say the blasts come from the towns of Rankus and Talfita, focal points of a military operation to purge the outskirts of Damascus of deserters and rebels.

“I saw a flash of light coming from the hill opposite the convent and then heard the explosion,” said a young law student who is a resident.

“I didn’t imagine that it could be a shell. I only understood that one had landed very near us once I heard the explosion and left my room,” she added.

Over the hills lies the besieged town of Rankus, with a population of 25,000, where the army this week spared no effort to uproot rebels.

Regime forces on Tuesday began blowing up houses in the protest hub, 40km north of Damascus, said an activist on the ground.

“This morning they started to blow up houses in Rankus. They are using diesel to set fire to buildings,” said Abu Omar, a spokesman for the town.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which claims to have the public’s support in what it labels a security campaign against “terrorists,” has ramped up its operations in recent days, in an apparently calculated move that banks on Russia’s support and cracks in the world community.

The opposition Syrian National Council called for a “day of mourning and anger” on Tuesday in response to the bloody crackdown that has left nearly 200 people dead in the past three days, activists said.

Founded in 547, the convent of Our Lady of Saidnaya is a leading Antiochian Orthodox nunnery, which overlooks a mountain village of the same name, just 35km from Damascus. The convent includes a school for orphans, whose costs are covered by private donations, according to a brochure distributed by the complex.

The nunnery is a major pilgrimage center and lies not far from the villages of Jabadin and Maalula, where people still speak Syriac, the modern version of Aramaic.